Naval vessels face a complex hostile environment represented by a variety of emerging threats, among which is the small and low flying cruise missile (CM). It is important to detect, track, and classify these small targets with sufficient range to deploy CM defense.
A known antenna for an airborne early warning (AEW) radar is a passive array housed in a 24 ft rotadome mounted atop an aircraft fuselage and mechanically turned at a slow rate of 10 seconds per revolution. Its performance is inadequate to detect, track, and classify small, fast, and low flying cruise missiles.